ALEXANDRIA, Va., Nov. 25 (UPI) -- At the 1992 Republican National Convention in Houston, former President Ronald Reagan began his speech by recounting his many incarnations at previous party rallies.
"Over the years," the former president observed, "I have addressed this convention as a private citizen, as a governor, as a presidential candidate and as a president. And now, once again, as private citizen Ronald Reagan."
A roar went up from the delegates at that point, telling Reagan and the world that the Gipper was still the inspirational leader of the Republican Party though he would never again be a candidate for public office.
History tells us that presidents neither govern in a vacuum nor give political direction without being mindful of previous party leaders. Republican and Democrat conventions alike have invoked the spirits of towering political figures who inspired their parties after leaving office.
For the Democrats, Franklin Roosevelt was the defining figure for many years, overshadowing Harry Truman -- current revisionism notwithstanding -- and even John F. Kennedy before November 1963.
Then JFK became the dominant figure in the party, hovering over the Johnson and Carter administrations like Banquo's ghost. Forty years have passed since Kennedy sat in the Oval Office yet his party remains, in spirit, and vision, his party.
The Republican Party, traveling a different road, has its own political icons around which to rally in good times and bad. Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and Dwight D. Eisenhower all inspired the party rank-and-file long after they had passed from the scene.
For the GOP conservatives who dominated the party in the second half of the 20th Century, the political leaders who first served as inspirational models were two men who didn't make it to the White House -- Sens. Robert A. Taft of Ohio and Barry Goldwater of Arizona.
Taft emerged as the champion of heartland Republicans in the FDR-dominated 1930s and 1940s. Goldwater picked up the torch in the 1950s and 1960s, even after his defeat by Lyndon Baines Johnson in 1964. Then, in the 1970s, a new political hero rode in from the West to become the national conservative leader.
Ronald Reagan emerged as the Republican Party's towering political figure even before the 1976 GOP convention, where he narrowly lost the presidential nomination to Gerald Ford. Four years later, he would become the party's standard-bearer, defeat Jimmy Carter, and bring the conservative seeds planted by Goldwater to fruition.
The key to Reagan's political success, both as a governor and as president, was his visceral understanding of the prime rule of leadership: To move people to action, you must first inspire them. Though consistently under-estimated by his liberal critics, he left the White House in 1989 with a record of achievement that ranks him as one of our greatest presidents.
The results of Reagan's 8 years in office speak volumes: cutting taxes; changing the way in which Americans viewed their government and themselves; taming high interest and inflation rates; creating 20 million new jobs; restoring dignity to the White House; rebuilding U.S. national defenses and the morale of the men and women who serve America in uniform; and, most importantly and impressively, winning the Cold War while firing nary a shot, thus freeing millions formerly imprisoned behind the Iron Curtain.
Old Reagan hands can only be heartened by seeing estimates of his presidency and the love of his countrymen rise with the passage of years. Yet, even as Reagan's reputation continues ever upward, the torch that he -- and before him Taft and Goldwater -- held over the years is being silently passed.
Reagan's dominion over the GOP and the current occupant of the Oval Office dimmed somewhat on Sept. 11, 2001, when Americans, and particularly Republicans, swelled with pride over who exactly was standing on the wall that day.
And as Reagan was the heart-and-soul of his party from the early 1970s to the end of the 20th Century, the elections of 2002 can be marked as the moment in political history when the GOP became George W. Bush's party.
It is Bush who now, as both national and party leader, defines the hopes and aspirations of those who helped create and shape the Reagan Revolution. It is now Bush, like Reagan before him, for whom future generations of Republicans will name their sons.
If there was any doubt left after Bush's speech to both houses of Congress and to the American people in the wake of "9/11", it dissolved after the results of the mid-term elections when Americans voted resoundingly in favor of their commander in chief and his party, rather than voting against the opposition.
This was the positive affirmation that escaped Bush in the cliffhanger November 2000 presidential election. But it was bestowed upon him by his response to the events of Sept. 11, 2001 and confirmed on Nov. 5, 2002.
Leaders, it is said, have a physical, intellectual and moral presence. Friends have told me that when JFK walked into a room, you could feel the electricity in the air. Having been in the same room many, many times with Reagan, I knew what they meant. Now people are saying the same of Bush.
-- Craig Shirley is president of the GOP firm of Shirley and & Banister Public Affairs and is also a Director of the American Conservative Union.
-- "Outside View" commentaries are written for UPI by outside writers who specialize in a variety of important global issues.
